Definitions
to a severe or serious degree
Word origin
From Middle English seriously, sereously, ceryously, seryowslech (“earnestly”), equivalent to serious + -ly.
Used in a sentence
“He was hoping that we would take him seriously.”
“Jimmy jokingly called Bob a doofus. Bob took the insult seriously.”
“Masters and Johnson wanted their work to be taken seriously, and wanted to stay a step ahead of the morality police, so they tended to write in almost comically dense medicalese.”
Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Used as a crossword answer2 curated clues
01“Not jokingly”9 letters
02“In earnest”9 letters
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